Cocky Biker: A Stand Alone MC Romance Novel (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 2) (5 page)

“
M
ommy
, why won’t you teach me Spanish?”

My mother lowered her voice to a whisper as she always did when he was in the house. “Because I want you to do something with your life.”

My five-year-old brain couldn’t understand how learning my mother’s native language would hinder that.

“Why would learning Spanish stop me, Mommy?”

Her eyes went sharp then with both anger and pain. She roughly grabbed my arm and whispered, “Luna! The people with power speak ENGLISH. Speaking only Spanish keeps us small. There are no jobs for girls of your skin color if you do not speak English! Do you want to be poor?! Being poor is evil, Luna. It makes bad people prey on you because you are vulnerable. You are meant for bigger things! Do you understand?”

With tears in my eyes I nodded, but I was lying. I didn’t really understand.

Not until I was older.

My mother was taught English by my Grandmother, who died before I was conceived. Her father died, too, during a raid on the drug cartel’s home where he worked and lived. He was one of the bad guys. Her brother died that day, too. He was her age and trying to be like their father. He died being like him.

Sofia, my mother, was very scared and alone when
he
found her. The men in her life had kept her sheltered, but
he
said he would show her great things, if she’d just trust him.

He was powerful. Charismatic. Educated about life in ways she was not. He told my mother he saw potential in her and offered to smuggle her into America.

He promised to take care of her and the baby who was on the way…me.

But when she got here, she all too quickly discovered what kind of evil he was. And she was told there was no way out. She had no money. No friends. No support.

And she had a baby to house and feed.

He manipulated her mind, but he never killed her spirit.

I was raised in a house of prostitution. I saw things a little girl never should, although the women tried to shield me as much as possible. I didn’t know why I was the only child there. Sometimes the women got pregnant but the babies always left. It was just the way things were.

When I was ten years old, my mother’s body was dragged out past my door.

At the sight of her bloody corpse, I screamed,
“What happened to my mommy!? Where are you taking her?! Let her go! LET HER GO!!!”

Her limp, naked legs made a horrible scratching sound on the jagged carpet, and I grabbed onto them so hard the sheet came off. One of his thugs covered her but I’d seen more than I should have.

I completely lost it.

I begged through sobbing screeches, “DON’T TAKE HER FROM ME! MOMMY!!! MOMMY!!” And as they pushed me off and I fell to the ground, I whispered, “Don’t leave me here all alone.”

One of the other sex-slaves, a woman in her twenties from Guatemala named Louisa, yanked me back and covered my mouth. She’d seen the men begin to get irritated, and she didn’t want them to punish me. I was always getting punished, and she knew they wouldn’t spare me even that tragic day.

In a stupor, I heard three of the other women whispering in Spanish what had happened to my mother. I couldn’t understand them all the way, but I got pieces of what they were saying. And I knew ‘muerto’ meant dead. I’d heard the word used in that hellhole many times and I knew then that it wasn’t a trick. My mother was gone forever.

It was like she never existed.

There was no funeral.

There was no report made to the police.

You can’t trust the cops.

They’re in on it.

If you run for help, you’ll be tortured. Not just sent back to your country…but whipped and beaten until you can never talk again, ever. That’s what they’ll do to you.

“If I don’t find you first.”

That is what
he
told my mother. That is what she believed. They all did and still do.

People think human smuggling and trafficking are the same. They’re not. Smugglers get you across the border and then you have to find your own way. They don’t hold you hostage. They just get you safely here.

Traffickers use people. Make money off them. Hold them hostage with lies and threats, making them sex-slaves, sweatshop workers, sell them for ‘marriages,’ always convincing them that they can’t go to the police. Yes, it goes on here in beautiful and free America. But no one talks about it.

I have never gone to the cops with what I know. Is that because I don’t believe they can help me? Partly, yes. But really it’s because…they wouldn’t let me kill him.

“Luna, I heard what happened to your momma.”

Sniffling and terrified of the evil man, I nodded.

In the fireplace behind him, flames licked the air, his imposing profile all the more terrifying to me because of them. He was counting money – cash. Lots and lots of cash. It lay on the table in dirty stacks next to a box with more inside, and his slimy fingers relished the feel of the paper as he picked up each note one by one.

“It’s too bad. She was sought after. Beautiful, though time was starting to take a toll on her looks. But you are growing old enough to take her place, so I guess there is no real loss here…is there?”

Images of what the women had to do in this house flashed before grief-stricken ten-year-old eyes as I held my breath in terror.

He smiled hideously. “Your tits are big now, too, just like hers.” That I hit puberty at age nine was the sickest joke nature ever played.

On a low, ugly chuckle, he asked himself, “I wonder how much they’d pay for a virgin.”

The lump in my throat twisted to coal as I watched pure evil rise from his chair and walk toward me.

Out of instinct I recoiled.

“STAY!” he shouted, as if I were a dog.

Panic-stricken I froze and watched as his wrinkly fingers reached over and slithered across my right breast.
He made a noise of appreciation that sounded like a snake smelling its dinner.

Tears started to pour down my cheeks. I made no move to hide them. I wanted my mother. I wanted to be rescued.

Malignant eyes locked on mine and I knew then he was going to rape me. And there was nothing I could do to stop him.

“They’d never know you weren’t a virgin…would they?”

“Sir?” a male voice interrupted.

The age-spotted hand retracted as Evil shouted, “I’M BUSY!”

“Two of the girls are missing. The ones we told you about.”

I knew immediately he meant Teresa and Juaquina. I’d heard them talking about running away, and because they’d found a friendship in each other, the feat seemed possible. They were new and not beaten down yet.

They thought maybe the rope couldn’t really hold them if they pulled it out together.

They talked in front of me the way everyone did, making the mistake of thinking because I was young, I wasn’t listening. But I didn’t tell anyone what they were planning. I never thought they’d actually try it. They’d be the first. In my mind, it was impossible, leaving here. So I kept my mouth shut and acted like I hadn’t heard a word. Didn’t even tell my Mom.

Yet here this bodyguard was, saying they’d done it. Something bloomed in my heart I’d never felt before – hope.

Evil was furious. Fire seemed to explode from his eye sockets as he rushed out to drag those poor girls back. Silently I prayed for them to make it and never be found.

And that gave me an idea.

Alone in the room, I raced forward and grabbed the wooden box of money. I shoved the bills he was counting onto the neat stacks inside and ignored the ones that escaped fluttering to the ground like butterflies.

If they wanted to be free, let them.

With everyone distracted looking for those young women…I escaped.

I’m twenty-eight now. Over the eighteen years since, I have imagined his face when he found me gone that night. Was it the next morning? Or did he come home and go to the room my mother and I had shared with five other harrowed women, to grab my arm and drag me to his bed?

Now is the time of reckoning. The girl told me the truth. This mansion is his. I saw a familiar face of a bodyguard in one of the windows as I stole across the lawn. Although he’s much older than when I knew him, I’ll never forget that profile. It was the man who’d pushed me back when I tried to hold onto my murdered mother for one more precious second.

Evil has profited since I ran away. If this is where he keeps the girls now, he must have more of them and business is booming. I feel sick picturing his gloating face as he dines with his demons night after night on food he’d never serve the women who earned it.

As usual the grounds around the house are unguarded. There are cameras, but few. The people who come here don’t want their ‘good’ names connected to atrocity.

Silently I move toward a side door and pull out the skeleton key I got off a drifter in Miami. It works most of the time. Slipping it into the lock, I hold my breath then turn. It doesn’t budge.

Twitching with nervous apprehension, I tuck it into my pocket and look over to the quiet street. Not a single car has passed. We’re high enough in the hills that no one comes through except those who live in this neighborhood. If they only knew what was right next door.

I can’t see the van I stole, which means they can’t either.

It’s late. He’ll be in bed by now. Or having cognac by the fire. I’ve no doubt he’ll have a fucking fireplace in his upgraded bedroom.

I will slip in there and shoot him before he even says my name.

Jimmying the door with a paperclip takes longer than the key would have, but I’m pro. Soon I hear the low click and know I’m almost there. My heart is beating painfully hard. I’ve waited my whole life for this moment. The knob gives under my pressure and the door opens.

Success.

With the gun in my hand, extra bullets in my jacket pocket, I go in.

What the fuck?

Do ALL the lights have to be on?

Swiftly and carefully I slink forward, listening for voices.

Several men are chatting casually in a room just ahead on the right about Kobe Bryant, obviously fans.
That’s right, boys, keep talking sports. Stay nice and distracted.
As I near the open door I slow and wait until I gauge the distance from me to them. From the acoustics it’s a big room. When I’m satisfied they’re not nearby and are engrossed in recounting last night’s game, I edge by unseen.

Rooms on my left are closed and quiet. I know he’s on the upper floor, where he believes he deserves to be. I’m going to send him underground, back to hell where his vacant soul belongs.

T
he plan is simple
. We park the bikes far enough away that our arrival isn’t broadcasted. We train when we aren’t on a mission. We’ve got guns, but we usually use our hands. The Ciphers don’t fuck around with shit like this.

We’re amped and ready.

“Holy shit,” Tonk mutters under his breath as he catches sight of the mansion. It’s something out of a fucking magazine for the wealthy and fucked up. Darker than most on the street. Foreboding as hell.

“Your heart pumping as hard as mine is?” Honey Badger growls.

I reply, “Can’t wait,” with my eyes on the prize.

Fuse and I exchange a look, too. We’re all waiting for Scratch to give the word since it’s his job.

He’s locked and loaded. “Fuckin’ cameras.”

Scanning, I spot ‘em in the corners plus one pointed at anyone coming up the u-shaped driveway. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” I ask Scratch.

From the corner of his eyes he looks at me, and nods real slow like. His steady gaze rakes over each of us before he snarls, “Let’s do it.”

Turning on his heel he heads back the way we came, me on his tail.

The others didn’t catch on, but they trust.

At the bikes, Scratch tells them, “Fuck low profiles.”

Their eyes gleam with instant comprehension.

Honey Badger smirks, “Give me an explosion over a whisper any day.”

Fuse grins and Tonk nods he’s ready to go.

In seconds we’re on the hogs, guns stuck in our belts, helmets still latched to the rides. With the wind in our hair we roar into action, revving the beasts with everything they’ve got. Shattering the silence we create a big scene, tearing up the driveway right in full view.

Security lights come to life. Some idiot helps us out by opening the front door as we sprint up the steps, surprised and not ready for this shit.

Honey Badger earns his name yet again by smacking the guy’s rifle into the air. The gun goes off.

None of us flinch.

He gives him a swift uppercut punch with his other hand, then using the gun to sucker-punch the fuck in the gut.

One after the other we explode into the mansion, running fast, anticipating a lot more men and a lot more bullets.

I take down a couple guys in black.

My brothers fight at least that many, each.

I hear a shout and look over my shoulder in time to dodge a bullet aimed at my fuckin’ head.

I punch the guy senseless.

This goes on until it’s quiet.

I scan the wreckage and discover Fuse on the floor, out, blood all over him.

Scratch, panting, sees him at the same time I do.

We rush over to find our friend shot in the shoulder and his nose bloodied up and broken.

Honey Badger is in a room to our left, punching the ever livin’ shit out of someone.

Scratch checks Fuse’s pulse and slaps his face. “He’s not gonna die from a shoulder wound. Fuse! Wake up!”

Groaning, he blinks awake in agony. “FUCK! DON’T SLAP MY FUCKING NOSE!”

“You got shot. You alright?”

“Yeah,” he rasps, looking at me like he can’t believe he went down.

“We won,” I tell him.

Tonk appears from another room down the foyer. “You’re never gonna believe this.”

“Stay here.” Scratch and I rise up to follow our youngest Cipher. Neither of us likes the look on his face.

Are we too late?

“Honey Badger!” Scratch calls into the room where the punches are still comin.' They stop.

“Yeah?”

“Give it a rest.”

He appears and follows us. “Motherfucker called me fat.”

Cracking my right shoulder back into place, I grin, “Well, he said that to the wrong guy.”

“Damn straight,” he mutters, still pissed.

With his eyes dead, Tonk growls, “In here.”